Microsoft finally answers back to Google Maps with their Virtual Earth beta product.

Virtual Earth is very similar to Google Maps in that you can drag and zoom satellite or roadmap map views. Virtual Earth has more zoomed-in satellite photos of some parts of Brooklyn than Google Maps does, but the zoom is clunkier than Google's implementation (it zooms and THEN refreshes, frustrating especially if the pictures on the new zoom level don't exist.) Also, directions to and from a location redirect to MSN's existing directions app, and don't overlay them onto Virtual Earth, which is definitely a big minus.